USES OF THE SILVER HAKE. 243 



not cured, but is considered worthless. In the months of September and October the Whiting is 

 used somewhat for bait for the dogfish and answers a good purpose." 



It is, as a rule, hardly worth while to criticise statements in a work so generally unreliable as 

 J. V. 0. Smith's "History of the Pishes of Massachusetts," published in 1843, but since he has been 

 quoted by De Kay' in a misleading manner, it should here be stated that in discussing this fish this 

 author had also in mind other fishes belonging to the genus Phycis, which are known by the name 

 of Hake all along the coast. 



The Merlitccio or California Hake. Mbrltjcixjs peodiictus. 



The California Hake, writes Professor Jordan, is most commonly known along the coast by its 

 Italian name, " Merluccio", pronounced merlodch. At Soquel and elsewhere it goes by the name 

 of Horse-mackerel, a name used on our coasts with the greatest carelessness, being applied to Mops 

 saurus, Anoplopoma fimhria, and Merlucius productus, as well as to various scombroids and caran- 

 goid fishes. It reaches a length of about thirty inches and a weight of ten pounds, its average 

 weight being five or six. It is found from the Island of Santa Cruz to Alaska, being very 

 irregular in its appearance, some years very abundant and at other times wanting altogether. 

 It is exceedingly voracious, feeding on all sorts of small fishes and squids. The stomach is always 

 filled almost to bursting. 



It spawns in the spring, and its arrival near the coast always precedes the deposition of the 

 spawn. It probably then retires to deeper water. 



Its value as a food-fish is very little. It is scarcely salable in the market of San Francisco. 

 Its flesh is very soft, and it is always ragged-looking when shipped. Nothing was learned as to the 

 quality of its flesh, but it probably differs little from M. bilinearis. 



73. SEVERAL UNIMPORTANT FAMILIES RELATED TO THE GADIDJE. 



The Congrogadus family [Gongrogadidce). — This family, which in some respects resembles 

 the eels and in others the Codfishes, contains, in all, three species : one from Australia, one from 

 the Red Sea, and the third, a small eel-like fish, of great activity, Scytaliscus eerdalis, which lives 

 among the rocks on the coast of Washington Territory. 



The Fierasper family (Fierasferidce). — These are never of very large size, and are eel- 

 like in shape. As far as is known, they live parasitically in the cavities of other marine animals, 

 especially in the respiratory cavities of star-fish and sea-slugs. Not unfrequently they attempt to 

 live in animals less suited to their habits, as, for instance, bivalves, and cases have been knowu 

 where they have been imprisoned below the mouth of the moUusk or covered over with a layer of 

 the pearly substance secreted by it. They are perfectly harmless to their host, and merely seek 

 for themselves a safe habitation, feeding on the animalcules which enter with the water the cavi- 

 ties inhabited by them.^ Three or four species of this family are known to occur on our Florida 

 and Gulf coasts. 



The Sand Ousk family. — The family Ophidiidce is represented on the Atlantic coast by a fish 

 so rare as to have no common name, the OpMdium marginatum, which is found burrowing in the sand 

 banks near Beaufort, North Carolina, occasionally at other places, and on the coasts of our South- 

 ern and Middle States,' and by several rare deep-sea forms. On the California coast is a similar 

 t^ 



'New York Fish Fauna, p. 82. 



2 GtJNTHEB : Study of Fishes, p. 549. 



■■'We dug two specimens out of the sand near low-water mark (Great Egg Harbor, April, 1871), where they 

 burrowed to the depth of a foot or more. When placed upon moist sand, they burrowed into it, tail foremost, with 

 surprising rapidity, disappearing in an instant. The species appears to be rare. — Verrell : American Naturalist, 

 V. 399. 



